scholarly journals Musical Expertise Facilitates Dissonance Detection On Behavioral, Not On Early Sensory Level

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-98
Author(s):  
Tanja Linnavalli ◽  
Juha Ojala ◽  
Laura Haveri ◽  
Vesa Putkinen ◽  
Kaisamari Kostilainen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Auditory Task ◽  
Sensory Level ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Behavioral Task ◽  
Musical Expertise ◽  
Consonance And Dissonance

Consonance and dissonance are basic phenomena in the perception of chords that can be discriminated very early in sensory processing. Musical expertise has been shown to facilitate neural processing of various musical stimuli, but it is unclear whether this applies to detecting consonance and dissonance. Our study aimed to determine if sensitivity to increasing levels of dissonance differs between musicians and nonmusicians, using a combination of neural (electroencephalographic mismatch negativity, MMN) and behavioral measurements (conscious discrimination). Furthermore, we wanted to see if focusing attention to the sounds modulated the neural processing. We used chords comprised of either highly consonant or highly dissonant intervals and further manipulated the degree of dissonance to create two levels of dissonant chords. Both groups discriminated dissonant chords from consonant ones neurally and behaviorally. The magnitude of the MMN differed only marginally between the more dissonant and the less dissonant chords. The musicians outperformed the nonmusicians in the behavioral task. As the dissonant chords elicited MMN responses for both groups, sensory dissonance seems to be discriminated in an early sensory level, irrespective of musical expertise, and the facilitating effects of musicianship for this discrimination may arise in later stages of auditory processing, appearing only in the behavioral auditory task.

Musical Experience Shapes Neural Processing

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-86
Author(s):  
Wido Nager ◽  
Tilla Franke ◽  
Tobias Wagner-Altendorf ◽  
Eckart Altenmüller ◽  
Thomas F. Münte
Keyword(s):  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Pure Tone ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Active Listening ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Neural Adaptations

Abstract. Playing a musical instrument professionally has been shown to lead to structural and functional neural adaptations, making musicians valuable subjects for neuroplasticity research. Here, we follow the hypothesis that specific musical demands further shape neural processing. To test this assumption, we subjected groups of professional drummers, professional woodwind players, and nonmusicians to pure tone sequences and drum sequences in which infrequent anticipations of tones or drum beats had been inserted. Passively listening to these sequences elicited a mismatch negativity to the temporally deviant stimuli which was greater in the musicians for tone series and particularly large for drummers for drum sequences. In active listening conditions drummers more accurately and more quickly detected temporally deviant stimuli.

scholarly journals Auditory Processing of Gender Agreement across Relative Clauses by Spanish Heritage Speakers

Languages ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Daniel Vergara ◽  
Gilda Socarrás
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Age Of Onset ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
Auditory Task ◽  
Auditory Modality ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Spanish Heritage Speakers

Processing research on Spanish gender agreement has focused on L2 learners’ and—to a lesser extent—heritage speakers’ sensitivity to gender agreement violations. This research has been mostly carried out in the written modality, which places heritage speakers at a disadvantage as they are more frequently exposed to Spanish auditorily. This study contributes to the understanding of the differences between heritage and L2 grammars by examining the processing of gender agreement in the auditory modality and its impact on comprehension. Twenty Spanish heritage speakers and 20 intermediate L2 learners listened to stimuli containing two nouns with gender mismatches in the main clause, and an adjective in the relative clause that only agreed in gender with one of the nouns. We measured noun-adjective agreement accuracy through participants’ responses to an auditory task. Our results show that heritage speakers are more accurate than L2 learners in the auditory processing of gender agreement information for comprehension. Additionally, heritage speakers’ accuracy is modulated by their Spanish language proficiency and age of onset. Participants also exhibit higher accuracies in cases in which the adjective agrees with the first noun. We argue that this is an ambiguity resolution strategy influenced by the experimental task.

Automatic Auditory Processing of English Words as Indexed by the Mismatch Negativity, Using a Multiple Deviant Paradigm

2004 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catharine M. Pettigrew ◽  
Bruce E. Murdoch ◽  
Curtis W. Ponton ◽  
Simon Finnigan ◽  
Paavo Alku ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Mismatch Negativity

scholarly journals Exposure impacts the pleasantness of consonance/dissonance but not its perceived tension

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imre Lahdelma ◽  
Tuomas Eerola
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Pronounced Effect ◽  
Musical Expertise ◽  
Musical Context ◽  
Vital Factor ◽  
Consonance And Dissonance

The contrast between consonance and dissonance is a vital factor in making music emotionally meaningful. Consonance typically denotes perceived agreeableness and stability, while dissonance in turn disagreeableness and a need of resolution. The current research addresses the perception of consonance/dissonance in intervals and chords isolated from musical context. Experiment 1 explored the correlations between the seven most used concepts denoting consonance/dissonance across all the available (60) empirical studies published since 1883. The stimuli consisted of a representative continuum of consonance/dissonance. The results show that the concepts exhibit high correlations, albeit these are somewhat lower for non-musicians compared to musicians. In Experiment 2 the stimuli's cultural familiarity was divided into three levels, and the correlations between the pivotal concepts of Consonance, Tension, Harmoniousness, Pleasantness, and Preference were further examined. Familiarity affected the correlations drastically across both musicians and non-musicians, but in different ways. Tension maintained relatively high correlations with Consonance across musical expertise and familiarity levels. On the basis of the results a rigorous control for familiarity and musical expertise is recommended for all studies investigating the perception of consonance/dissonance. The findings help pinpoint how familiarity affects the perception of consonance/dissonance and demonstrates the pronounced effect of musical expertise on this.

scholarly journals Going beyond rote auditory learning: Neural patterns of generalized auditory learning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon L.M. Heald ◽  
Stephen C. Van Hedger ◽  
John Veillette ◽  
Katherine Reis ◽  
Joel S. Snyder ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Auditory Evoked Potentials ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Auditory Evoked Potential ◽  
Cortical Processing ◽  
Rote Learning ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Auditory Learning

AbstractThe ability to generalize rapidly across specific experiences is vital for robust recognition of new patterns, especially in speech perception considering acoustic-phonetic pattern variability. Behavioral research has demonstrated that listeners are rapidly able to generalize their experience with a talker’s speech and quickly improve understanding of a difficult-to-understand talker without prolonged practice, e.g., even after a single training session. Here, we examine the differences in neural responses to generalized versus rote learning in auditory cortical processing by training listeners to understand a novel synthetic talker using a Pretest-Posttest design with electroencephalography (EEG). Participants were trained using either (1) a large inventory of words where no words repeated across the experiment (generalized learning) or (2) a small inventory of words where words repeated (rote learning). Analysis of long-latency auditory evoked potentials at Pretest and Posttest revealed that while rote and generalized learning both produce rapid changes in auditory processing, the nature of these changes differed. In the context of adapting to a talker, generalized learning is marked by an amplitude reduction in the N1-P2 complex and by the presence of a late-negative (LN) wave in the auditory evoked potential following training. Rote learning, however, is marked only by temporally later source configuration changes. The early N1-P2 change, found only for generalized learning, suggests that generalized learning relies on the attentional system to reorganize the way acoustic features are selectively processed. This change in relatively early sensory processing (i.e. during the first 250ms) is consistent with an active processing account of speech perception, which proposes that the ability to rapidly adjust to the specific vocal characteristics of a new talker (for which rote learning is rare) relies on attentional mechanisms to adaptively tune early auditory processing sensitivity.Statement of SignificancePrevious research on perceptual learning has typically examined neural responses during rote learning: training and testing is carried out with the same stimuli. As a result, it is not clear that findings from these studies can explain learning that generalizes to novel patterns, which is critical in speech perception. Are neural responses to generalized learning in auditory processing different from neural responses to rote learning? Results indicate rote learning of a particular talker’s speech involves brain regions focused on the memory encoding and retrieving of specific learned patterns, whereas generalized learning involves brain regions involved in reorganizing attention during early sensory processing. In learning speech from a novel talker, only generalized learning is marked by changes in the N1-P2 complex (reflective of secondary auditory cortical processing). The results are consistent with the view that robust speech perception relies on the fast adjustment of attention mechanisms to adaptively tune auditory sensitivity to cope with acoustic variability.

Perception of long-distance coarticulation: An event-related potential and behavioral study

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL GROSVALD ◽  
DAVID CORINA
Keyword(s):  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Acoustic Stimulus ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Behavioral Study ◽  
Behavioral Task ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Negative Deflection ◽  
Acoustic Stimuli ◽  
Phonemic Contrasts

ABSTRACTIn this study we explore listeners' sensitivity to vowel to vowel (VV) coarticulation, using both event-related potential (ERP) and behavioral methodologies. The stimuli used were vowels “colored” by the coarticulatory influence of other vowels across one, three or five intervening segments. The paradigm used in the ERP portion of the study was intended to elicit the mismatch-negativity (MMN) component, a negative deflection typically seen at central midline scalp sites about 200 ms after the presentation of a “deviant” acoustic stimulus occurring among a train of “standard” acoustic stimuli. VV coarticulation at near and medium distances was associated with significant MMN-like effects, which however were not observed in response to the longest distance coarticulatory contrasts. Subjects' ERP results did not predict their performance on the behavioral task, which found evidence of listener sensitivity to even the furthest distance coarticulatory effects. Although the MMN has previously been shown to be sensitive to phonemic contrasts, this is the first study using ERP methodology to investigate the subphonemic processing associated with the perception of coarticulation.

scholarly journals Sensitivity to Interaural Phase in Older Hearing-Impaired Listeners Correlates With Nonauditory Trail Making Scores and With a Spatial Auditory Task of Unrelated Peripheral Origin

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 233121651986449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olaf Strelcyk ◽  
Pavel Zahorik ◽  
James Shehorn ◽  
Chhayakanta Patro ◽  
Ralph Peter Derleth
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Discrimination Performance ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Auditory Task ◽  
Cognitive Test ◽  
Interaural Level Difference ◽  
Strong Correlations ◽  
Performance Improvements ◽  
Interaural Phase ◽  
Trail Making

Interaural phase difference (IPD) discrimination upper frequency limits and just-noticeable differences (JNDs), interaural level difference (ILD) JNDs, and diotic intensity JNDs were measured for 20 older hearing-impaired listeners with matched moderate sloping to severe sensorineural hearing losses. The JNDs were measured using tone stimuli at 500 Hz. In addition to these auditory tests, the participants completed a cognitive test (Trail Making Test). Significant performance improvements in IPD discrimination were observed across test sessions. Strong correlations were found between IPD and ILD discrimination performance. Very strong correlations were observed between IPD discrimination and Trail Making performance as well as strong correlations between ILD discrimination and Trail Making performance. These relationships indicate that interindividual variability in IPD discrimination performance did not exclusively reflect deficits specific to any auditory processing, including early auditory processing of temporal information. The observed relationships between spatial audition and cognition may instead be attributable to a modality-general spatial processing deficit and/or individual differences in global processing speed.

scholarly journals Automatic Auditory Processing Deficits in Schizophrenia and Clinical High-Risk Patients: Forecasting Psychosis Risk with Mismatch Negativity

2014 ◽  
Vol 75 (6) ◽  
pp. 459-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica B. Perez ◽  
Scott W. Woods ◽  
Brian J. Roach ◽  
Judith M. Ford ◽  
Thomas H. McGlashan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Clinical High Risk ◽  
High Risk Patients ◽  
Psychosis Risk ◽  
Risk Patients ◽  
Processing Deficits

The mismatch negativity (MMN) – A unique window to disturbed central auditory processing in ageing and different clinical conditions

2012 ◽  
Vol 123 (3) ◽  
pp. 424-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Näätänen ◽  
T. Kujala ◽  
C. Escera ◽  
T. Baldeweg ◽  
K. Kreegipuu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Central Auditory Processing ◽  
Clinical Conditions
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